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Hypersonic testing is too expensive and too scarce
Access is limited
Specialist test infrastructure is scarce, oversubscribed, and difficult to schedule.
Iteration is too slow
Low-cadence testing limits learning cycles and delays development.
Every test carries risk
When a flight costs millions, each one has to work. Programs stop experimenting.
The result is slower development and slower fielding.
Move the complexity to the ground.
The accelerator is stationary infrastructure. It is reused shot after shot, and the expensive high-performance hardware never leaves the ground. That is what makes a high test cadence affordable. It is the difference between a single-use article that reaches its target speed once and a system built to fire repeatedly.
Real Hardware.
Real-world testing.
Three campaigns. Increasing scale. Ground-based validation.
Desert Thunder
6-inch + 29-inch
Test hardware
Testing across two hardware scales.
Big Iron
29-inch x 2,000 ft
System scale
Cold hydrogen testing
Hot Iron
29-inch x 2,000 ft
System scale
Hot hydrogen/combustion testing
Proven today. Scaling on a stated schedule.
MACH 4.2
100+ shots fired
Hydrogen Testing
Barstow, California
Mach 5-7
20–100 kg payloads
29-inch Big Iron
Daily
Designed to fire once a day
Application areas
Flight opportunities for tracking, discrimination and terminal sensing.
Hypersonics
High-cadence developmental flight testing for vehicle and subsystems.
Air & Missile defense
Affordable, threat-representative high-speed test articles.
Directed Energy
High-speed targets for engagement and lethality testing.
Sensors & Seekers
High-cadence developmental flight testing for vehicle and subsystems.
Precision Fires
Rapid characterization of components operating at extreme velocity.
Advanced Technology
A reusable platform for rapid experimentation and risk reduction.
Our Partners
AEDC Velocity Alliance
Member of the Air Force consortium pre-qualified for test-infrastructure modernization, established by Arnold Engineering Development Complex with the Air Force Test Center. Longshot is the only member building kinetic test accelerators for full-scale systems in low-level free flight.
Darpa Eris marketplace
Assessed awardable, August 2026. Longshot's solution is available for selection, negotiation and award by government customers with a Marketplace account.
MDA Shield IDIQ
Position on the multi-award vehicle as part of the Mettle Ops team, giving eligibility to bid task orders across the Golden Dome portfolio.
MDA STTR Phase 1
In partnership with Purdue University, Longshot modeled and designed hypersonic vehicles with government input.
AFRL
TACFI contract awarded 2024 for the Longshot USSF Hypersonic Testbed. Air Force SBIR and STTR support since 2021.
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Cooperative Research and Development Agreement.
What if you could test ten times more often at one-tenth the cost?
Today
1 data point
WITH LONGSHOT
10 data points
More testing means faster learning.
Faster learning means faster fielding.
Request a capability brief.
Payload envelope, flight environment, instrumentation, recovery, cadence and cost data are available to government customers under appropriate controls.